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Yeah, but so what they use Skype? DARPA will figure out a way to break the encryption.

It's not about being uncomfortable with wiretaps. It's about being uncomfortable will illegal, non-FISA approved wire taps. If these guys were in a terror cell (and in the US) and FISA was asked for a warrant, it would be granted.

The general public isn't worried about wiretapping. They're worried about an executive branch that thinks it's a dictatorship, free from the laws that govern this land.

Clearly, if any group were to use perfect tradecraft and communications, it would be much more difficult - if not impossible - to catch.

But perfection doesn't come easily. Look at how many CIA, KGB, MI6, DGSE and other intelligence agencies' officers have been caught because of screw-ups. These are people trained for long period of time - often years - to accomplish their jobs, yet even among their ranks screw-ups occur.

Terrorists, such as those caught in the UK, don't have such training. While they use many sophisticated (and many simple) means to avoid detection, they often lack the discipline to use them all the time and, in the case of Al Qaeda, often operate in such large groups as to make security hap hazard at best.

Consider Thursday's group and Al Qaeda's MO. A group that size had probably been in the planning and recruitment phase for several months if not several years. A group of that size needed large amounts (by terrorist standards) of outside funding, training, and support. They needed to move lots of information, stay in contact with each other, all while maintaining an outward appearance of normalcy (which they also apparently failed at, as a human intelligence source played a major part in busting the plot as well). A group of 24 - some say as big as 50 - quickly becomes unwieldy, and establishing perfect discipline amongst its often panicked members can be quite difficult.

Al Qaeda's biggest strength, and its biggest weakness, is the size of its attacks. The 9/11 attack was astounding, winning the group recognition worldwide, but it required a very large group to plan and execute. If the planned airline bombings had taken place, the result would have been perhaps equally astounding, but Al Qaeda's eyes are much bigger than its stomach - if it had targeted only one, perhaps two airliners and kept the groups small, tight, and using foreigners instead of UK citizens, it probably could have pulled it off. Look at the "shoe bomber" - he was stopped only by passengers, and his plot was unknown to counter-terrorist officials beforehand. If he'd had the smarts to try and pull it off in the airplane's bathroom, one would assume he'd have been much more successful.

Even if the group keeps 95% of its communications perfectly secure, that 5% slip can be enough to get them. Using that pre-paid cell too many times, forgetting to encrypt a chat just once, slipping up and paying with a credit card, not properly casing a facility, failing to use proper cut-outs to wire cash, etc. Insecure communications are far more efficient and, when one is panicked or when one becomes too confident, are often opted for, which is the key to getting people. By keeping the pressure up and making these groups feel nervous, most are bound to screw up in one way or another, helping them get caught.

While perfectly secure means of communication may well exist, the human element is what will always screw it up. Think about it this way - how easy is it to commit a "perfect murder", one that that leaves you with practically no chance of getting caught? If properly planned, not too hard, right? Yet most murderers are eventually caught. Why? They get lazy. They screw up. All too often it is the stupidity, poor planning, lack of discipline, panic, or overconfidence that gets them caught. Terrorists - who generally operate in sizable groups - often fall to the same problems.

Look at the "shoe bomber" - he was stopped only by passengers, and his plot was unknown to counter-terrorist officials beforehand. If he'd had the smarts to try and pull it off in the airplane's bathroom, one would assume he'd have been much more successful.

Yeah. What the fuck? Even a total idiot would have known to go somewhere isolated in order to ignite his shoes. The only thing I figure is that maybe the explosive power of his shoes was too small to do much damage unless it was in the right spot to i

My personal opinion - he got scared. He got scared, he didn't want to go through with it, but was also afraid of being labelled a coward (or perhaps worse) by his handlers, so he went for it, put up a bit of a fight, and let himself get captured. He gets his "honor", but doesn't get blown to bits.
Other alternatives:
- He was just plain ditch water dumb and wanted to get in his "Allahu Akbar" in front of everyone before it blew. Yeah, that didn't work out too well. Less likely.
- The bomb needed to b

First, the us gov. dropped the case on PGP back in the early 90s. They dropped it when the NSA stepped into the case and told the FTC to drop it. After pulling their lawyers into a backroom, the lawyers came back and dropped the case. Read into it what you will

Second, you seem to assume that the gov. can only look at bit at a time.

Finally, if they encrypt everything, that means the feds can simply find out which traffic to examine quickly. IOW, it is now flagged as to where to look. If you are looking f

Well, then, either it will be illegal to use any encryption at all (and you'll be locked up forver under suspicion of being a terrorist if you do), or you will be forced to supply your private keys on demand to the authorities (UK RIP act from 2 or 3 years ago).

On the Charlie Rose show last night, an ABC newscaster said that the U.S. and British governments spy on each other's citizens, doing things that would be illegal in their home countries, and share that information with each other.

Tripoli is no more the Middle East than is Rome or Berlin. Arab does not equal Middle East. Arab includes much of North Africa, including areas rather west of Portugal, once included most of Iberia and much of west Africa (hence Swahili). Arab does not include Iran.

However, I'm sure that in a different universe, there are Islamic extremists who are suicide bombing canoes and tipis, and deerskin pouches being checked for explosive glass beads. Also, intercontinental ballistic arrowheads (ICBAs) aimed at Baghdad and a hell of a lot of turban trophies with scalp attached...

Never heard of the Crusades then? The current battles are being branded as the "modern crusades" by people looking to drum up outrage. Also don't forget the Ottoman empire's invasion of Vienna, and the Umayyad dynasty's conquering of Spain. This all hapenned well before the 1850s discovery of producing kerosene from petroleum.

In fact, Osama bin Laden and others complain about events that have occurred in the last few decades. That's what made the U.S. a target. You can see officials from middle eastern countries mentioning this over and over again on Charlie Rose shows. Google video [google.com] now carries Charlie Rose.

I'm NOT saying violence is justified. I'm against violence. But, the U.S. government did, in fact, interfere with the politics of Saudi Arabia, as Osama bin Laden claims. Remember 15 of the 18 attackers of the World Trade

increase oil profits for who? the arabs? they own the oil, lease the fields out, control production a nd recieve the $60 per barrol or what ever the going rate is.

You got everything right except for the last part. In plenty of cases they've signed agreements for fixed prices or for fixed percentages based on the cost to extract. So in the later case, they might only get 10% of the market price. Back when oil was $20/barrel that $2 might have been all the profit there was after all costs. But at $60/barr

On the Charlie Rose show last night, an ABC newscaster said that the U.S. and British governments spy on each other's citizens, doing things that would be illegal in their home countries, and share that information with each other.

That's the UKUSA programme (which despite the name also includes Australia and New Zealand), and it's been going on for decades. Any intercepts on US citizens that NSA isn't legally allowed to obtain directly, they get from GCHQ in England under the terms of UKUSA's intelligen

But thank you for the canned soundbite about how the west is responsible for the crappy condition of the avg arabs life. Somehow a less biased person might look at the middle east and think that their problems stem from lousy corrupt governments that have a willingness to kill their own citizens, the subsitution of religous precepts for sane government policy and a willingness to blame everyone else in the world for their own problems.

But thank you for the canned soundbite about how the west is responsible for the crappy condition of the avg arabs life. Somehow a less biased person might look at the middle east and think that their problems stem from lousy corrupt governments that have a willingness to kill their own citizens, the subsitution of religous precepts for sane government policy and a willingness to blame everyone else in the world for their own problems.

You are blaming arab governments on the arabs? My favorite middle eastern country, in terns of messed up history, is Iran. It isn't technically arab, but a lot of westerners don't bother to make any sort of distinction. Especially those making arbitrary blanket statements like yours.

At the start of the 20th century, there was a movement in Iran to move from a monarchy under the Shah to a nation with a constitution. There was some success, but England and Russia very actively impeded this process, and supported rolling back the role of the constitution. Then, there was a bit of a revolution, and a new Shah who had been involved in getting the constition made came to power.

The western powers hated this guy, basically forced him to abdicate, and had his son take power. In the 50's, the prime minister was asked to step down, tried to have another little revolution in order to move the country from a constitutional monarchy to a proper republic. The English and Americans would have none of it. So, we reinstalled the Shah, and installed a new prime minister. We also set up some official agreements and contracts about oil. A set of western oil companies had full control over the oil in Iran, and Iran couldn't audit the accounts to see if they were getting their contracted cut. So, basically Iran got shit from the exploitation of their own natural resources, because the West decided how the government should be run. (On several occasions!)

Interestingly enough, the Islamic revolution happened right about the same time that those oil contracts ran out. The whole history is far more interesting than I can fir into a slashdot post. My research on the subject is also far from complete. And, that's just one country.

For another interesting tidbit -- after the Islamic revolution in Iran, America was scared, a wanted to avoid having radical Islam spread in the middle east. We wanted to support non-religeous leaders in the area. It was less than a year after the Islamic revolution that Saddam came to power in Iraq.

Actually, modern terrorism started when the so-called great profit Mohammed realised everyone was too smart to fall for his con-job he called a religion which he didn't really follow and practice himself (his 9 to 10 wives instead of the 4 the Quran allows is just one example). This is added to the fact the Quran does not even agree with itself. Just look at how it describes the creation of the world. In one passage it takes 6 days, and in another account of the creation story in the Quran if you add up

The general problem with recognizing whether or not warrantless wiretaps will aid a terror investigation is that while it's true that 99% of terrorism investigation will likely never have a need for a warrantless wiretap before they will be found out, there will be that 1%* that would require it to be found out before the attack occurs.

Huh? What would your "1% case" look like? Remember, they can already wiretap for 72 hours before getting the warrant, they can and do get warrants 24/7 (including going

What would your "1% case" look like? Remember, they can already wiretap for 72 hours before getting the warrant

The time they need to wiretap 73 hours before getting the warrant.

Restating the question isn't the same thing as answering it. If I asked you to "name one thing that you thing would cure baldness" and you replied "a baldness cure," you'd hardly expect me to accept that as a responsive answer, would you?

The time that they know that someone is going to attack a specifically national monument

It is nice to know that wiretaps have been useful in doing this, but the question has never been whether wiretaps should be used to counter terrorism. The issue is whether or not illegal wiretaps should be used!

You make a valid, and somewhat rare point. The key arguement is whether the wiretaps are legal or not. It is difficult for anyone to say "wiretaps should always be illegal" with a straight face unless they have no historical perspective or just insane.

The government is GOING to do wiretaps, the key is enforcing the law and making them prove they are necessary before they do them, and yes, very often, they ARE necessary. People would do better to focus on the legal/illegal aspects instead of just saying "all wiretaps are bad". Taking that stance makes someone look like a whacko, and no one will pay attention to them.

A world where NO wiretaps are allowed is no better than a world where wiretaps go unchecked. Just a different brand of bad.

All of which makes you wonder why wiretap evidence is still inadmissible in UK courts, which (if recent reports are anything to go by) is a large part of why we now have all these dubious restraint-without-charge laws. If the authorities know someone's a bad guy, from legitimate intelligence, why the hell can't that person be hauled up before a court, tried on the basis of that evidence, and sentenced like any other bad guy if convicted? Surely this is a better scheme than the current "we don't need no stin

The investigation had already been ongoing for quite a long time at the point at which the phone call, which gets only a brief mention in the article there, was intercepted by a wiretap. What this article tells us is that sometimes police use wiretaps when investigating suspects. We already knew that.

"More comfortable with wiretapping"? Wiretapping has been used by law enforcement for decades, and nobody really has a problem with this. What people have a problem with are:

Indiscriminate "blanket" wiretapping

Wiretapping without warrants or judicial safeguards.

Neither of these things were necessary at any level of the U.K. investigation there; they knew who to tap ahead of time, and they were in a position to go ahead and follow correct procedures for wiretapping such as obtaining warrants. The current U.K. case in fact weakens the case for these new, neoconservative policies, since the suspects here were caught through good old fashioned police work, not through crazy new vague police powers where the police tap whoever they want whenever they feel like it.

The question is, "Is unregulated wire tapping of citizens with out oversight more effective than regulated wire tapping with oversight and a 24 hour grace period?"

This bust came from an informant not wire tapping. Someone who knew the suspects did the right thing and turned them in before they could kill innocent people. Wire tapping provided details, but it was not the out of control tap everyone without rule of law tapping big brother types advocate. Sooner or later the wiretap freaks will score a

The 24 grace period is for the PISA court. The NSA/bush could(can) put a wire tap on anyone in the US. They would then have 24 hours to present evidence to the PISA court to show that the wire tap was warrented, at which time, the PISA court would issue a warrent. Any evidence gathered in the 24 hour grace period could be used in the warrent hearing.This system, albeit a bit scarey, at least had oversite from the judicial branch, and a review process from the senate. The Bush administraton decided that ther

Huh? I have no idea what your babbling about. I am more liberal than my family, and more conservative than my friends. My veiws vary from topic to topic but I almost invariably side with Personal and States rights.In any case, by "abuse of power" I mean using the powers granted by Bush's term in office for political gain. As in, wire tapping competing political party members, journalist, social acquintances, etc. Sure, we can be told "that will never happen", but when the only people reviewing the system ar

Despite increased surveillance, violent crime is soaring yet our goverments idea of punishment is handing out an ASBO. Most ineffectual government 'evar', only appear to be in power to lay the framework for a totalitarian regime.

Nothing about the article implies that the wiretap was anything out of the ordinary. There is no debate as to whether proper, judge-approved, wiretaps aren't a reasonable tool in fighting crime. The debate is as to whether warrantless, mass-phone-taps, with millions of people being monitored, are an absurd extreme.

The article doesn't say that the phone tap was Judge-approved (or that it wasn't) but it is clear that the phone tap was of a specific person, with there being reasonable cause to decide to tap

Whether or not the people are comfortable is hard to say. We'll see if this latest "terror plot" is all bullshit or has any basis in reality in a year or two. At least the British police didn't murder any Brazilian plumbers this time.

I don't think any reasonable person would object to a panel of judges being presented with serious evidence by a police/security investigation team and issuing a warrant that says it's reasonable to investigate further on that basis. That bar of "reasonable" should be set

Terrorism is a bit different. The ideological motivation makes it harder to suppress based on fear. Even if the terrorists are afraid they still take action. As regards the simple criminality of cheating on bus fares, maybe it's effective, same as NYC's "broken windows" policies, but even under total communism there were still criminals.

us being in their countries doesnt make them very happy, but it is not the root cause of te terrorist attacks
Oh come on! All the attacks in Europe have been EXPLICITLY because of it. The 9-11 attacks were EXPLICITLY because of the USA backing up the Saudi state and Israel. So, unless you think they bother to take terrorist action and at the same time lie about why they're doing it you should accept that the stated motivation is indeed the motivation. Otherwise you get into completely speculative psych

We've had wiretapping for a long time, and most people are comfortable with it. Here in the US, you can get a warrant from a judge for wiretapping a US citizen, and we have a special court called FISA specifically for issuing warrants for international type wiretaps. It's routine and it happens *all the time*.

However, as I understand, wiretapping is *not* what tipped off British officials to the group who were going to carry out this plot. It was a friend/relative of one of the plotters who tipped of the police. Then, I'm guessing, the police went and got a warrant to tap this guy's phone, and worked thier way through the group, getting more warrants and taps, until they understood the group structure and their goals.

However, what I am extremely uncomfortable with is the unaccountable and warrantless comprehensive wiretapping of all phone calls in the US. If it is not illegal in the specific wording of the law, it certainly goes against the spirit of the right to privacy and the presumption of innocence. This is very scary. Totalitarian governments love keeping records and tabs on everyone so they can harrass and dissapear them whenever some person starts speaking up.

I'm not saying that Bush is a facist, but think about it -- would you trust Hillary Clinton;) or whoever the next president is with such a massive, ongoing surveillance database?

I'll corroborate the tipoff from the news article I just read in the paper.. Saturday's Atlanta Journal Constitution.

As for the rest... people in power should not be trusted, no matter what party they claim. Power corrupts. For that matter, being in politics too long simply makes you stupid as to how the world works. Enforce term limits... vote against the incumbent.

I've never seen a terrorist. To me, terrorists exist on television. What I have experienced are authority figures abusing power. Until terrorists stop hanging out with Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny and end up near me, I don't care how dangerous they are.

I suppose its a matter of importance, while the authorities have a greater level of involvement in your day to day life, the worst they will do it listen to you say naughty things to your girlfriend. On the other hand, while terrorists generally have no involvement in your daily life, if (or when) they do you'll be blown into little pieces.Cue dodgy analogy: its like making backups - I do it every day and thing 'why bother, my HDD never failed', but the one day my PC suffers catastrophic hardware failure, I

the worst they will do it listen to you say naughty things to your girlfriend.

I'm sure that's the only thing the KGB were listening for when they were tapping phones.

You're far too trusting of your government. Sure, we're all grateful when wiretapping prevents someone from killing a bunch of people, but the possibility of a power-mad government is far more dangerous and far more likely. What keeps Western democracies from becoming fascist states are the limits placed on the government's power and the dil

Terrorists do not only exist in NYC and London, although they are popular targets.I live in London, have done since i was born 18 years ago. I never really lived through the IRA bombings, but we just stumbled through it. The greatest freedom that i feel i've been robbed of due to terrorism at the current time? There's no bloody bins on the Tube, as they were a favourite IRA target. After the 7th July bombings they removed the bins from overground trains for about 2 weeks too.

..just get a warrant, keep it in the public record, and hold the government accountable when they screw up, so that they choose their wiretaps carefully. Heck, if you want to err on the side of caution and wiretap first, get the warrant second, I'm fine with that too. Just don't hide what you're doing from the citizens of your country, don't pretend like you're smarter than anybody else.

It's possible to be safe from both terror AND idiot totalitarian governments.

Where is the proof of all this BS? It could just as easily be yet another reichstagg fire type false flag operation. All we have to go on is a few governments words on this stuff, governments that are all obviously pushing totalitarianism. Buttis crap gets repeated verbating by the wire services as "true facts". Proof, let's see it. And how many government agents are inside these alleged cells, maybe directing them, egging them on?Sorry, this terrorism crap to get more big brother action in place is looking

I find it odd that all was quite on the western front, and all of the sudden the domestic wire tapping issue & AT&T blows up in their faces...and right in the middle of it they bust a bunch of Jamaican pot heads in Florida for being terrorist. And then all of the sudden, they start busting a few more "cells," and they always tag on, "and they were caught by monitoring the Internet or by wire tapping."...as if it is some sort of subtle advertising campaign. I mean, really, in any other type of incident, they probably wouldn't even release how they were caught for months, if at all (yeah, why not tip off the terrorist to quit using the phones or the Net). But it is almost as if we are watching some infomericals from some PR firm, not to scare the "terrorist," but to condition us and make us pro-monitoring.

Completely right. It's not even so subtle once you get used to their tricks. Nobody seems to question aspects of the story and are happy to trust the CIA . Basically nothing happened this week apart from a lot of people were very inconvienced and everyone was told something very bad nearly happened but we stopped it because of monitoring. The majority seem to think this is proof or justification of the methods and then carry on slowly accepting the ceaseless curtailment of their (hard fought for) liberties.

The US forced the UK's hands, making them arrest the suspects weeks or months before the Brits had intended. It will make the case harder to prove (they hadn't purchased any airline tickets, some of them hadn't even gotten their passports yet, they hadn't prepared any explosives and the UK--standing up to the US--in insisting on due process) but it fit right in with the Bush administration's plans to swiftboat Ned Lamont and use the arrests for fund raising [dccc.org], so they went ahead anyway.

Anyway, I don't necessarily believe them when they say they cracked the case using wiretapping. They may well be preserving operational security by saying they got the plotters by a different method than they really used. Or perhaps they're just lying like they have so many times before.

In short, there is no new information based on this bust.

If instead they said they caught them by sneak-and-peek, would that mean that you would no longer want protection against unreasonable search and seizure?

All I have been hearing on the news is that they were caught because they were discussing the plot in a mosk and someone their reported them. They might have used wiretapping after that but they probly got(or could of gotten) a warrent.

The claim may or may not be propaganda, but it's certainly right there in the news. E.g. [guardian.co.uk]:

'He has been staying here for quite some time and has been under strict surveillance since then,' a Pakistani intelligence source said. 'His calls to Britain and internet communications have been under surveillance that helped in revealing the plot.'

British sources reveal that the UK -> US plane-bombing plot was uncovered by a UK wiretap.

Claims by a Pakistani official:

'He has been staying here for quite some time and has been under strict surveillance since then,' a Pakistani intelligence source said. 'His calls to Britain and internet communications have been under surveillance that helped in revealing the plot.'

You see, no Bristish source. No UK wiretap. The summary was a fabrication easily refuted by reading the linked artic

This country once won real wars on two fronts, against the Japanese and Adolph Hitler simultaneously. We had help from our allies of course. We had allies. We have now mobilized the entire might of the US armed forces, given the president war powers, abridged the rights of our citizens, and birsmirched our international reputatation for decades to fight what? Box cutters and bottles of hair spray. It's a disgrace.There is no vast international Al Qaeda conspiracy; there are a handful zealots. The zeal

The fundamental rights of each individual person shouldn't be up for a vote to be removed.It's as silly and ridiculous as the concept of writing anti-discrimination laws when the rights to life and LIBERTY are already a given, with liberty being what should be protecting against undue discrimination.

There are things that shouldn't even need to be written into law to protect our fundamental rights. There are also other things that need to be written into law to protect against other laws trying to redefine t

Just because the authorities say they uncovered the plot by a wiretap, doesn't mean it's true.

The most likely way they got the info was by infiltrating the groups likely to organize plots. It sounds too much like James Bond, but it is in fact one of the ways the Brits countered the threat of IRA terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s. When you get information from agents, you always deny the existence of the agents to protect them, and say you got the information from somewhere else. The job agents do is dangero

People don't care anymore, they're fearful and spineless, and are more than willing to give up their rights these days.

I'm trying, in my own way, to do something about this. I talk to friends and family. I talk to people at work. I tell them, as best I can, why we need to hold onto our freedom. I'm passionate about living, and I do everything I can. I write to my MP. I engage people in debates to try and raise awareness of the issues at hand.

So far, no one's been charged or convicted in this case. Who knows, maybe they were just discussing their trip to Disneyland. They were supposedly going to use a soft drink bottle for explosives, so a couple of plastic bottles and a camera is probably the only evidence there is.

Civil rights of 400-500 million violated...Well, the UK has a population of 60 million, so you're going a tad OTT.

and so far one legitimate, serious attack has been prevented. So is there some sort of quota that you want? We must stop at least one serious terrorist attack every two months before it's justified action?

The same attack could likely have been prevented by forcing everyone to check all luggage and allow no carry-ons.Ah, so you complain about civil rights being eroded, but you'd have no problem if before 9/11 they'd have said: "Right, you're not allowed hand luggage except the bare minimum, that's passport, tickets and wallet." People would go nuts and ask why it's justified, wonder why they can't take their Gameboy, MP3 player or even a book onboard that really fun 7 hour transatlantic flight. Screw business class and business customers having the ability to work on the move, by-bye laptop, mobile phone, dictaphone and probably even pens or pencils.

As much as i dissapprove of the idea of only reacting to something after it's happened, if you'd even have suggested the security measures now 10 years ago, you'd be laughed out for costing the industry millions.

Well, the UK has a population of 60 million, so you're going a tad OTT.

I'm sorry but I don't see a functional difference between violating the rights of 60 million to catch one guilty person vs the rights of 500 million.

The premise of the constitutions of western worlds is supposed to be innocent until provent guilty. This means the government should not be authorized to systematically invade the privacy of the populus at large with no probable cause in the hope o

Actually, there is no evidence that any attacks have been prevented yet.

The police said that the attacks were "imminent", and would have taken place "in the next few days". Yet, there are no reports of explosives being found yet. You would assume that they would already have all the equipment if they were going to go within days.

In fact, the first reports -- before the higher ups in the real PR department got into full spin -- was that the reason these people were tracked was because after the London bombings a relative contacted the police with suspicions. You will note how that in itelf would TRIVIALLY allow the police the right to do taps under the OLD laws. No massive tapping of everyone, no carte blanche needed. Just the good old normal "We have resonable suspicion, please allow us to tap these people, Judge".

This is just "Lock The Laws In" spinning. 100% full throttle let us build a Big Brother Government so pervasive that there is no doubt that terrorism is in fact working excellently-spinning.

And it'll work. The phantom enemy, the "intelligent network", will win. Wasn't it odd that the first press conference I saw had a talking head explaning how this was ''very similar to an Al-Qaeda plot'', trying directly to instill that link to the ''network of evil'' as it were.

It's very noticable that the huge amount of press coverage and spin about this latest incident contains no hint that the police might have found any sort of bomb. Plenty of stories about "the terrorists were planning to use a bomb made of liquids", but absolutely nothing whatever along the lines of "the police have found some liquids".

I'm betting that it turns out that these people were talking big to each other, but never had a bomb. Actually, if you know your telephone is being tapped and there is par

I'm setting up an agnostic community. Then the reporters will be able to disambiguate us from the other religions and we can join in this warfest the others seem to be having, if one is to believe the news. Anyone up for it? Meetings the third Tuesday of every month at the phone box in Park Lane. Since we will probably all fit into it, I also suggest we go the whole hog and claim minority status. God/Allah/Bhudda knows what we're going to use as an excuse to become extreme agnostics, but I'm sure we'll find

As I have said, the problem is with Islam itself. Enough political correctness, please. Islam is a religion that exhorts its followers to violence.

*sigh* Fine, I have karma to burn, and I am feeling in a bad mood today.

You should get out more and meet more diverse people.

You should buy this book [amazon.com] and meditate its teachings on the violent background of every religion.

Now, with the exception of radical Hinduism and unorthodox strains of pseudo-Christian religions, almost all modern religion outside of Islam considers peace to be a virtue.

Right. And you are full of it. Religion is all about gathering a group of people around a central figure. The easiest way to do this is to create "enemies of the faith". And the easiest way to create enemies is to focus on their (alleged) sexual behaviour. Read this book [amazon.com] and that book [amazon.com] for more information on this. The bottom line is this: group dynamics and religious propaganda will always drag people toward violence , especially if religion -- or some form of religious belief -- is there to de-humanize the so-called "enemies". By the time individuals realize this, it's a full-scale religious war and it's to late to change course.

When you have created nice enemies, violence will always be a consequence. Does not matter which religion you are following, including Buddhism. Jainism or Zoroastrianism may be exceptions, but this is mainly due to the fact they have both been extremely small minorities for centuries now, even millenias in the case of Zoroastrianism.

And just as a warning to those who want to cite a few violent verses in the Bible to me as "proof" that Judaism and Christianity are as bad as Islam, I can cite just as many direct commands from God that override any "general" interpretation of those.

This is so dumb it's not even funny. First of all, I can probably quote more scriptures from the Bible (that great big piece of religious shit) than you. Second, when will you realize that human beings focus on the violence, and not on peace?

For every "Love thy neighbour" there is a "Kill all your enemies, and do not spare women and children". We could go tit-for-tat like this for centuries, and people have been doing exactly this all over the Internet. Interpretation of absurd commands and nit-picking regulations is what most religions are all about. And interpretation always responds first of all to bloodthirst. And we are bloodthirsty animals, all of us.

There was a time when good Christians launched Crusades against Moslems -- whose civilization was, at the time, the most brilliant on Earth. Now Moslems are using terrorism against "Christians". History repeats itself, nothing new under the sun, yadda yadda yadda. I am sick of people like you who blame one religion for all the problems. Religion, in general, is the problem (and especially retarded religious people).

History repeats itself, nothing new under the sun, yadda yadda yadda. I am sick of people like you who blame one religion for all the problems. Religion, in general, is the problem (and especially retarded religious people).

You're jumping to a conclusion that "religion"(*) is the origin of the world's problems when everything you say in your post suggests that people are, in fact, the true source. You say that people are, in general, a "bloodthirsty lot," but then want to make the claim that religion is

Islam is now the dominant religion in many very poor, badly run countries. People who seek power can always gain power in poor countries if they offer a message of hope, preferably one that says you have permission from God to improve your lot by attacking somebody else. That's just another factor in the explosive mix that is human culture. If Christianity was the dominant religion in poor countries and not the final development of the State religion of the Roman empire, I am sure we would have Christian su